The Time Out-Mint Planner

Unlike the medicine shows of 19th century America, this Delhi variety isn’t peddling anything, but it will take care of your summer blues. Delhi’s version will be a one-of-its-kind cabaret-cum-variety show and will feature six-piece band Emperor Minge, burlesque dancer Anjoe, puppeteer Varun Narain, short theatrical sketches from the Tadpole Repertory, French troubadours Antoine and Romain, besides stand-up comedy from RJ Abish and Papa CJ.

Venue and time to be confirmed. Contact Stefan Kaye (9911290113, steffkay@gmail.com) or join the Facebook group “Stiff Kittens’ The Medicine Show” for more details.

Art

WhyNot Place

Ongoing

A day residency that encourages public participation, which will result in an exhibition in August. The residency features 25 participating artists (culled from a starting list of over 200), all mostly young and “emerging”. The artists have been divided into batches of five and given two-week slots to create pieces inspired by Connaught Place.

Part of ‘Jashn-Osianama—Kala, Cinema and Sanskriti Ka Mela’, an art show organized by Osian’s, this exhibition will showcase many modern artists, including Manjit Bawa, Jamini Roy, Krishen Khanna, F.N. Souza and Vivan Sundaram. It seeks to explore artistic interpretations of death and often, the violence that it involves.

10am-8pm, daily. India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43662026).

Music

Shujaat Khan + Sanjeev Abhyankar

3 July

A solo sitar performance by Shujaat Khan, who belongs to the Imdadkhani gharana. He is the son and disciple of the late Ustad Vilayat Khan. The other artist of the evening is Sanjeev Abhyankar, who will present a Hindustani vocal recital. Abhyankar, who belongs to the Mewati gharana, has been a disciple of his mother Shobha Abhyankar, her guru Pandit Pimpalkhare and also Pandit Jasraj. The two concerts are part of the programme Barkha Ritu—Rains and Ragas.

7pm. Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (24682222).

Theatre

Mahim Junction

5 July

This flamboyant, over-the-top musical set in Mumbai in the 1970s and 1980s is an unabashed homage to Bollywood. The play, written by Sohaila Kapur of Hungry Heart in 1998, revolves around the motley crew that inhabits a slum adjoining the platform at Mahim Junction railway station. There’s Rahim, a friendly ‘dada’; Radha, the local beauty; a cross-dressing prostitute; a politician; a cruel mother; a genial drunk; a sleazy film producer (DDLJ Kaladhanda); and an NRI who wants to save the world.

In A New Soul is a Sattriya recital by Mridusmita Das and Ramkrishna Talukdar. Sattriya, which emerged in Assam’s Vaishnava monasteries, is now a classical dance form.

7pm. Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43663090).

Film

The Legend of 1900

8 July

Trumpeter Max Tooney narrates the story of Danny Boon T.D. Lemon 1900—a jazz prodigy found aboard a transatlantic steamer as a child and adopted by the ship’s coal man. After his adoptive father dies, 1900 decides to spend his life on board the ship, proving his prowess at the piano to passengers who come aboard, including Jelly Roll Morton (of New Orleans jazz fame). He once considers disembarking, but in the end rejects “the infinite keyboard that is the city—God’s piano”.

Tooney, once part of the ship’s orchestra himself, tries to convince 1900 to leave the now-deserted ship, but 1990 can’t bear to leave the only home he’s known. In the end, it blows up and sinks, presumably taking 1900 with it. Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, 2 hours 45 min.

An Indian hatches the perfect business plan: Invest in a call centre helpline for suicidal Americans. When Anuvab Pal wrote the play 1-888-Dial-India on this premise, he knew the best fit for the spike-haired, tightly-dressed, reptilian business entrepreneur Arun Gupta would have to be the genial Kunaal Roy Kapur, who directed Pal’s 2007 play The President is Coming and later, the film version too.

The Viewing Room decided to name its exhibition ‘Beyond the Wires’ because of these lines from a Philip Larkin poem: Young steers are always scenting purer water/ Not here but anywhere, beyond the wires. It is this sense of curiosity that marks the paintings and installations on display at this show. Among other artists we found particularly interesting were Debashree Das, who uses everyday objects to re-examine her environment, and Jayant Jadhav, who represents creatures such as the butterfly as delicate mechanisms.

The idea of surviving the Holocaust takes on many nuances in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s stark evocation of a largely unknown area of World War II German history: the use of skilled prisoners to create counterfeit currency for Operation Bernhard, a plan to flood the British and American economies with fake cash. Ruzowitzky gives us Salomon Sorowitsch, a successful Jewish forger in the pre-war Berlin of 1936 with a pronounced instinct for self-preservation. Salomon is arrested, and for the rest of the 1930s and until the end of the war, he finds himself putting his skills to a different use, first in Mauthausen and later Sachenshausen.

Disney’s first 3-D animation ‘Bolt’, made under new head John Lasseter, is a likeable, dynamic and seductively characterized family entertainer. Directed by newcomers Byron Howard and Chris Williams, it’s a romantic tale about the sentimental education of the titular dog, which is graphically inspired by the larger American shepherd and modestly voiced by John Travolta.

In The Truman Show fashion, Bolt is the deluded superhero star of a hit live action children’s television show, replete with a snazzy lightning logo emblazoned on his flank. As Bolt is separated by accident from “his person”, the equally innocent child-star Penny (Miley Cyrus), and joined by an alley cat (a sassy, touching Susie Essman) and couch potato hamster (a cherishable star-turn by animator Mark Walton), he learns to be “a real dog”.

Across cinemas.

Music

Naked Soul

8 July

Loy Mendonza and Joe Alvarez team up for the first time to play jazz and contemporary music.

It’s the perfect setting for pretty young things to be chased by nasty thugs, corpses to be dragged and dumped into the sea and for bold men to have adrenaline-filled fights. Little wonder then that when a Bollywood script demands a sinister scene, the film crew heads straight to Mukesh Mills in Colaba. This fortnight, you can head to the Pundole Gallery, where the mill is the focus of an exhibition by Bangalore-based photographer Pallon Daruwala. Gutted by a fire in 1984, this 19th century textile mill borders the Sassoon Docks. Daruwala’s exhibition consists of 36 photographs that explore the ramshackle parts of the mill, its gaping windows, desolate lanes, massive work sheds and roofless structures.

A group show of new works by three Chennai-based artists: Aparajithan A.L., Ganesh Selvaraj and Sailesh B.O. Aparajithan, born in 1972, is a former faculty member of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai, and the department of visual communication at Madras Christian College. He was awarded the Tamil Nadu State Lalit Kala Akademi award in 1998. Selvaraj, born in 1976, received the Asia-Pacific International Art Award in Seoul, Korea, in 2000, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Arts Fellowship Award in 2004. Sailesh, born in 1970, was awarded the HK Kejriwal Young Artist Award in 2000, and also won the SLBA Award in Lyons, France, in 2008. Visit www.sumukha.com

An exhibition of works in charcoal by Bangalore-based artist Jayant Hubli. Hubli, who says he’s comfortable working with watercolours, oil on canvas, charcoal, wood, acrylic, clay and plaster of paris, is a former winner of the Karnataka Lalit Kala Akademi Award.

The Orissa Cultural Association of Bangalore is organizing a programme that will showcase both Odissi dance and music. The performer for the evening will be Sujata Mohapatra, the daughter-in-law and student of the late Kelucharan Mohapatra. She will be accompanied on stage by Ratikanta Mohapatra on the pakhawaj.

The second segment of the evening will feature music by Bijay Jena and Nazia Alam, who sing compositions from the works of Jayadeva and other poets such as Upendra Bhanja and Gopalkrushna Das.

Winners of Season 4 of KroaKING from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune will face off in this final event of the popular karaoke competition. KroaKING Season 4 Finals are being held to coincide with the launch of Opus’ new nightclub in Pune—Opus, In The Creek.

Pravin Godkhindi and M.K. Pranesh will lead a flute jugalbandi accompanied by Anoor R. Ananthakrishna Sharma on the mridangam, N. Amrit on the kanjira, S.G. Pramath Kiran on the morsing and other percussion instruments, Jagadish Kurthkoti on the pakhawaj, and Uday Raj Karpur and Madhusudan on the tabla. This Carnatic concert will open Thalavadyotsav—2009, the 28th edition of a five-day-long percussive arts festival and music conference.

7pm. Bangalore Gayana Samaja, KR Road (26506049).

Theatre

Next

8-9 July

Marion Cheever is a middle-aged, overweight, debt-ridden, divorced father of two who finds himself at the centre of an unlikely quandary. He’s been called to the army induction centre for a draft. And the screening officer is a no-nonsense Amazonian-like female sergeant. Throwing all his wits into evading service, Cheever does everything to disqualify himself, only to be stymied by the equally determined sergeant.

When he realizes resistance is futile, Cheever’s final monologue in this one-act play by American playwright Terrence McNally reveals the deeper dilemma of a man for whom the meaning and purpose of his very country have become blurred.

Ganges Art Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Debraj Goswami, Somit Gupta, Rajiba Lochan Pani and Pampa Panwar. Goswami’s works include symbols from diverse cultural and socio-political frameworks, such as the Magrittesque unicorn attempting to conquer a tree of hammers, to critique technological progress. Gupta’s paintings are on acrylic sheets, and his subject is the urban condition, depicted in bright and brooding colours, with both Art Deco and Art Nouveau influences. Pani seeks to discuss identity, politics and culture in his somewhat cluttered canvases with a fierce wit. Panwar explores the narrative capabilities of work through pensive, sometimes melancholy images. One of her more poignant motifs, the jockey, recurs across canvases.

Sudipta Karmakar’s works depicting the ancient architectural heritage of India—including the Taj Mahal, the Golden Temple, the Red Fort and the Sun Temple in Konark—are atmospheric, even as they combine keen observation with technical precision. He makes great use of his fluid and sensitive medium, imbuing India’s cultural heritage with mystery and intimacy while avoiding grandeur and drama. Instead, his frames seem almost incidental. His previous works were equally pregnant with atmosphere and nostalgia, and focused on the country’s colonial legacy. Much like Paresh Maity, his avowal of a “traditional” medium stands not in opposition to modernity but as an extrusion into contemporaneity.

A time capsule of a story based on the life of Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, more popularly known as Mirza Ghalib, and his times. Playwright: Sumitro Bandyopadhyaya. Directed by Amitava Dutta, performed by Ganakristi.

In its 35th year of performance (it was first staged in 1976), this comedy centres around a retired gentleman who disappears suddenly without a trace. Playwright: Manoj Mitra. directed by Alok Deb, performed by Pratikriti.

6.30 pm. Academy of Fine Arts, 2, Cathedral Road (99433538345). Tickets, Rs20-60, available at the academy 1-7pm, daily, and 10am onwards on the day of the show.

Music

Mukulita Kasholay

4 July

Rabiman presents a musical recital on the childhood years of Rabindranath Tagore. Recitation by Soumita Chattopadhyay, song by Sinjini Acharya Majumder, script by Krishna Roy.

The Kalabihar annual concert at Sisir Mancha will begin with a music recital in the urban-traditional ‘baithaki’ style of Kolkata, presented by Aditi Chatterjee, Santanu Sengupta, Amit Ganguly and Saikat Mitra. This will be followed by the dance drama Dharanir Pathe Pathe, directed by Subhashis Bhattacharya and Sushmita Bhattacharya.

Part lounge, part restaurant and giant hookah bar, Sheesha Sky Lounge has tried to be all things to all people. Thanks to its clever design and the huge area its terrace occupies, this wasn’t too much of a stretch. Sheesha’s fifth outlet in Mumbai is off Andheri’s bustling Link Road and is a hookah-serving alfresco establishment, much like its older sibling. Unlike most other clubs or restaurants in the city that generally up their frou-frou quotient as they move closer to “town”, this one is much swankier than its southern sister.

Shavata Gupta has been rather busy over the past few years, cementing her position as the “brow queen” of the UK. She now has brow studios in big stores such as Harrods, Harvey Nichols and House of Fraser. The next logical step was to put her signature on a brow line. Shavata tweezers are like nothing we’ve seen before. They’re heart-shaped and come packed in little transparent heart-shaped containers and plush black covers. The eyebrow kit is also quite an eye-opener. There are stencils of different eyebrow shapes. So you peel one off, stick it in your brow and tweeze away at all the hair that sticks out.

“Can we really leave behind what we have grown up with?” asks Samira Gupta, a graduate in mass communication from Bangalore’s Mount Carmel College, and student of visual communication at the city’s Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, in her debut book, ‘Fiftyseven by Eight’. The book isn’t so much of a graphic novel as it is a collection of black and white photographs woven through with short notes and asides, recounting Gupta’s childhood, upbringing and the quirky mannerisms of her family. Ultimately, in tracing her teen years, Gupta enters the emotional territory that most youngsters will find familiar.

Fiftyseven by Eight, Tranquebar, Rs350.

Exotic chinese at Haka

Haka would be a Chinese restaurant cliché in terms of its black, red and bamboo decor—if it weren’t minimal and modern with it. No grotesque dragons. Lots of pseudo-geisha-esque fashionistas flaring against the walls. The food is basic, no frills, but well executed and not unduly Indianized (or even Sichuan-ized). Despite its location in a bustling mall, it continues to remain a well-kept secret. The vegetables, especially, are impressively exotic and plentiful.